Story and Photos by Eric P. Whitaker
The author was political/economic officer at the U.S. Embassy in Bamako, Mali, until July 1999 and is now serving in Maputo, Mozambique.
The mosque of Sankore in Timbuktu.
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 hen we told people we were serving a Foreign Service tour in Mali, friends and relatives often thought we had said "Maui," "Bali" or "Malawi." To clarify, I would add that we lived in the country where Timbuktu was located. Unfortunately, this merely added to their confusion, as many thought this place, synonymous with remoteness, was a mythical locale. Although its glory days are in the distant past, the town of Timbuktu lives on, quietly straddling the frontier between the Sahel and the vast Sahara.
Tuareg pastoralists, the famous "Blue Men of the Desert," founded Timbuktu in the 12th century. Located in the geographic center of western Africa, roughly halfway between Cote d'Ivoire and Algeria, Timbuktu was one of the most important cities on the continent between the 14th and 16th centuries. Its name, "Tombouctou," means "well of Buktu," reflecting its role as a desert oasis.
Timbuktu was important for two principal reasons: it was a significant center of Koranic education and it was an important relay station for trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, ivory, slaves, leather and cloth. Its location, just north of the northernmost bend of the Niger River, made it easy for traders from the south to market their goods to Maurs, Tuaregs and other Berbers who came by camel caravan. Today, processions still bring salt down from Taoudenni, further north, where gigantic slabs weighing hundreds of pounds are literally sawed out of the desert floor, while smaller pieces are sold in markets throughout northern Mali.
So great was its reputation as a seat of Islamic training that Timbuktu developed diplomatic relations with Egypt, Morocco, Saudia Arabia, Spain and Turkey. As many as 20,000 students came from all over Africa and the Middle East to sit at the feet of Muslim scholars in the city's more than 180 Koranic schools. As a center for Koranic scholarship, in its day, Timbuktu rivaled Cairo, Fez and Mecca. The great libraries of this city, with a population of 100,000, held thousands of volumes of hand-written books, surpassing European libraries of the same era.
After centuries of grandeur, Berbers invaded Timbuktu in 1591, plunging the city into decline. At about the same time, Portuguese navigators were discovering reliable sea routes for trade with Africa, hastening that decline by undermining Timbuktu's role as an important trading crossroads. Yet it was not until after the French explorer Rene Caillie visited Timbuktu in 1828 that Europe had accurate information about this mysterious and previously inaccessible city. Although the Scottish explorer Gordon Laing reached this Saharan oasis first, he was murdered on the Sultan's orders en route to Segou. Caillie, disguised as a Maur and speaking fluent Arabic, stayed there for two weeks before returning to Europe, where he published a lengthy journal describing Timbuktu.
A group from the embassy in Bamako visits Timbuktu.
It stands, today, much smaller, as the capital of the northernmost region of Mali. The "city" is dotted by domed Tuareg tents and simple mud-brick dwellings, and the streets are often inundated with shifting sand. Wide, funnel-shaped wells, measuring more than 150 feet across, are built to prevent collapsing and endangering the few precious sources of water. Arched windows and large wooden doors studded with silver stars and half-moons reflect the influence of the long period of Moorish occupation.
Timbuktu assails the senses. Swirling sand, combined with the light-colored tones of the ground and buildings, generates a nearly blinding glare. I vividly remember a January visit during the harmattan--the seasonal wind that blows Saharan sands south--when I could see the blue of the sky only by looking directly above, through a window in the chalky blanket engulfing me. The air, while scorching by day, can be quite chilly during winter evenings. Nonetheless, it is a dry heat, much like that of the Arizona desert. Silence pervades the town, adding to its mystique. True grit is literally what it takes to sample Timbuktu's whole wheat bread, as one crunches down on the staple and encounters ever-present sand.
Each year, the mystique of Timbuktu draws a handful of hearty tourists eager to experience the reality of this isolated outpost. To document their accomplishment, most have their passports stamped at the police commissioner's office or mail cards at the post office. Indeed, it is fascinating to visit the homes of early European explorers, tour the famous mosques of Sankore, Sidi Yahiya and Djinguereber and stop by the Ahmed Baba Center, which houses more than 14,000 texts--the remnant of the once-great libraries of Timbuktu.
Some, like our daughter Ginger, had the opportunity to camp out in the desert with the Tuaregs; others, like our son Jordan, were able to take camel rides and bargain for daggers and leather handicrafts.
As in days of yore, getting to Timbuktu can be difficult. Air Mali flies there three times each week and, season permitting, you can arrive by unpaved road or ferryboat down the Niger River.
Despite the changes wrought by time, Timbuktu remains an important site. Situated astride the junction of the Sahel and the Sahara, it demonstrates the ongoing struggle against the relentless southward advance of the desert. Surrounded by a greenbelt of briar bushes designed to anchor sand dunes, Timbuktu has a "peace garden" where visitors can plant scrub pine saplings.
Timbuktu is also a place where sedentary peoples and pastoralists live together in harmony. In the spring of 1996, after years of strife between rebel Tuaregs and the government, the "Flame of Peace" ceremony marked the conclusion of a successful peace agreement. Widely attended, the event involved the burning of hundreds of rifles to signify an end to conflict. Today, numerous nongovernment organizations have offices and projects in Timbuktu aimed at integrating Mali's northern regions into the mainstream of the country's economic and political life.
In a visit to Timbuktu in the spring of 1999, Under Secretary for Global Affairs Frank Loy met with a range of local officials to discuss environmental, peace-keeping, refugee, women's economic empowerment and democratic governance issues. A key aspect of his visit was to study new approaches to worldwide problems through examples furnished by an ancient city. Perhaps many "global" questions can best be addressed by learning from local experiences such as those of Mali's city of mystery, Timbuktu.
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